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SPEECH 



/ % Of 



HON. I-Mr CLAM, OF NEW YOM, 



XrPON THE SUBJECT OF 



THE ADMISSIOI OE KAISAS AS A STATE 



UN DEB 



THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. 



DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JIARCH 24, 1858. 

The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and having under 
consideration the bill to supply deficiencies in appropriations for the fiscal year ending 
June 30, 1858— 

Mr. CLARK, of New York, said : 

Mr. Chairman : The theme of Kansas, and her proposed admission 
to the Union as a sovereign State, is well nigh exhausted. But so 
important is the subject to the future of that infant community, and 
to the harmony of the republic of which she is destined at no distant 
day to become a part, and to such a degree does it seem to occupy the 
public mind, that I deem it my duty to inform t'his House and the 
country of the reasons which force me to vote as I must upon the 
distracting, and as some say vital, questions involved. 

No representative upon this floor can disregard the fact, that from 
the farthest north to the remotest south, — from our homes upon the 
Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific, an intelligent people, for the 
most part, as I believe, loyal to the Constitution, and sincerely at- 
tached to the institutions which have, during the brief period of our 
national existence, elevated us to our place among the nations of the 
earth, are themselves considering the question which is soon to be 
presented for our determination. They watch our proceedings with a 
well directed eye ; and they listen to our debates with an interest not 
unmingled with alarm. And well they may ; for it has been more 
than once asserted upon this floor, with a solemnity which betokens 
determination, that. this Union can no longer exist if Kansas is de- 
nied admission under the constitution which has been presented in 
lier behalf. We are informed, sir, by the resolutions of sovereign and 
independent States, that the announcement of the result of our delibe- 
rations may be the signal for the initiation of measures having in view 
the establishment of a new and independent governmental organization 
within the borders of the federal Union. 

Representatives of constituencies in those sovereign States — men of 
education and of patriotism — have spoken in the language of unques- 



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tionecl sincerity, and have warned us of the dangers which may flow 
from our unjust decision of a question which it is alleged concerns the 
honor of their people and the security of the institutions upon which 
their prosperity rests. 

If, sir, this be true ; if the decision to which we may arrive upon 
this, in my judgment, comparatively unimportant question, is to de- 
termine the iate of the wonderful experiment of constitutional gov- 
ernment which for the past half century has been written down in the 
world's history as successful, well may that people, whose fathers 
acquired their liberties amid the dangers of a revolution, contemplate 
with unusual anxiety the hazards to be incurred in the new one which 
thus threatens to break upon their repose. 

I have not time, sir, to speak of the Union as I would like to speak, 
nor will I attempt to rehearse the unwelcome hut familiar story of the 
causes which have led to an estrangement which satisfies my mind 
that this gloomy foreboding may, perhaps, be no idle dream. I shall 
not endeavor to point out, as I think I might, where this fearful alien- 
ation of national affection began, or speculate where it may end. I 
shall make no charges of wrong or injustice ; answer no threats ; nor, 
if I can avoid it, utter a word to awaken one single sentiment of un- 
kindness ; but shall hasten to place upon record the views which I 
entertain upon the question to which I have proposed to address my- 
self, with that frankness which should characterize a representative of 
the people in his place upon this floor. 

Mr. Chairman, I am a northern man, and do not feel that I have a 
right to boast of exemption from the influence of those prejudices 
which spring to the human heart from the scenes by which iniancy 
was surrounded. I disclaim the power to discard from memory the 
teachings of youth, .or to repel the impressions made by the experi- 
ence of a life not eventful, but which has, nevertheless, afforded no 
inconsiderable opportunity for reflection. I love and revere my native 
North ; and when I hear her assailed, when I hear her institutions 
and her people brought in ungrateful contrast with those of the South, 
my heart would leap to her defence. I review her history, and re- 
membering nothing upon a single page which brings dishonor upon 
her fame, 1 am at a loss to account for the spirit of those who accuse her. 
I reflect with natural pride upon her institutions, and the wealth and the 
power which they have created; and rejoice, rather than deplore,, that 
prosperity has resulted to the people of the South from other institu- 
tions specially adapted to their more genial clime ; and believing, as 
I ever have believed, that the immense development of material 
wealth, and the vast sum of individual happiness of which, as a nation 
we can boast, have resulted from our national Union, I have assumed 
that the North and South would remain forever combined, for the 
preservation of that common government whicli furnished its just and 
equal protection to the whole. 

Mr. Chairman, as it seems to be not unusual for gentlemen upon this 
floor to acquaint each other with their political views preliminarily to 
the discussion of this controverted question, I may be permitted to 
say that I am one of that democratic party of the North which has 
been beaten and torn in its struggles for the maintenance of the 



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constitutional rights of the South, until we have been, as it were, 
driven to take refuge within the walls of our northern cities. _ The 
district which I have the honor to represent embraces a population as 
great as, if not greater than, any other constituency in the Union, 
and perhaps contains more of the product of our prosperous foreign 
and domestic commerce. It is the site of palaces of almost imperial 
wealth, as well as the abode of unambitious poverty. And I ven- 
ture to assert that no man in this House is responsible for his public 
acts to a constituency embracing a larger amount of educated, intelli- 
gent, right-minded men. The political condition of the country is 
c? matter of their daily observation ; and as connected with the pro- 
tection of the vast capital and industry which they employ, and its 
results, they exact from their representative upon this, as well as upon 
every other question of national concernment, the most careful, fear- 
less, and conscientious discharge of duty. In respect to our national 
Union, and the importance of its preservation in unbroken integrity, 
but one sentiment pervades her people. Upon that subject, reference 
to which seems inevitable in every discussion connected with the 
formation of territorial government, the admission of a new State, or 
the extension of our dominions— and no section of the Union has a 
more direct and material interest in every new annexation of territory — 
they are eminently national and just. 

While common candor compels me to say that the teachings of my 
youth left no impressions favorable to the institution of slavery, and 
instilled no learning to justify the opinion frequently asserted upon 
this floor, that its influences upon the civilization of a people are com- 
pensatory for those repelling features which are said to be inseparable 
from its existence, I can, nevertheless, with equal candor, assert, that 
in respect to that institution wherever it exists, and in respect to the 
rights of the owners of slaves to an equal and just participation in all 
the advantages of our territorial acquisitions, I have never, since the 
hour of earliest manhood, entertained but one sentiment ; and that 
sentiment was, and is, that interference with it where it exists would 
be an outrage ; and that to deny to the slaveholding States equal priv- 
ileges of emigration with slaves to our territorial possessions, would 
be a wrong, to which a people, conscious of their rights, and capable 
of asserting them, could not be expected to submit. Such I believe 
to be the universal sentiment of the northern democracy upon this sub- 
ject—a sentiment which no northern or southern fanaticism can weaken 

or destroy. 

The northern democracy occupy a middle ground between two par- 
ties which appear to have taken form— the one regarding the_ exten- 
sion of slavery, and the other the prohibition of such extension, as 
the object of their political organization. While they stand pledged 
to the maintenance of the constitutional rights of the south in respect 
to territory already acquired, or hereafter to be acquired, they are not 
committed, nor are they to be committed, to measures having solely 
in view the extension of the institution of slavery. 

While they are favorably inclined to the acquisition of Cuba, and 
such other southern territory as can be acquired without violence to 
the principles of international law, they would not regard the ex- 



istence of slavery in Cuba, or in such other soutliern territory, or tlie 
liability to its extension and continued existence, which may result 
from the special ada])tcdness of soil and climate to that particular 
species of agricultural labor, a barrier to such acquisition. 

I may also be permitted to say that, in conjunction with vast num- 
bers of men at the Nortli who gave their adherence to the principle of 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill, when, by the votes of southern men, it be- 
came incorporated, so to speak, in our system of territorial law, I was 
distrustiul of its practical working. Not intending to assert the power 
of prophecy, I thought I foresaw that it threw open our Territories to 
just such a straggle as lias been witnessed in Kansas. No man who 
had observed the character of the emigration, whose tide, setting in 
from the Old World, seems resistless as the flow of the ocean, or who 
had contemplated the repugnance to the institution of slavery, which, 
it is not to be denied, pervades to a great extent the hills and valleys 
of the North — an antipathy which, in very many instances, results 
from a moral conviction which no argument can reach, and in many 
more from a thirst for the acquisition of political power which the 
spirit of patriotism is unable to subdue — could have failed to reflect 
that this subjection of common territory to an unequal struggle for its 
•occupation might work injustice to the South. It surrendered the 
power which Congress might have exercised to secure the territorial 
rights of both the North and the South by positive law, to the uncer- 
tain and dangerous issue of a race of emigration between the North 
and the South— while, from the peculiar character of our people, and 
the difference in their dispositions to abandon an old and seek a new 
home, and the difference in their facilities for the conversion of prop- 
erty into money, the North, in my judgment, had unquestionably 
the advantage. The more adventurous spirit of the North breaks 
away easily from the home of childhood. It cheerfully encounters 
greater risks ; while, on the other hand, the proprietor of slaves, with 
attachments to the scenes of his youth less readily sundered, more de- 
liberately contemplates the greater change to his social and domestic 
relations which must follow the establishment of a new home in a 
wilderness or among strangers. 

The passion for land speculation which pervades our people — well 
illustrated in Kansas, whose territorial legislature have just removed 
their seat of government from the place where it had been located by 
law, and where Congress had recently expended a considerable sum 
of money in appropriate improvements, to a spot remote from its set- 
tlements, and capable of being ascertained only by the aid of natural 
landmarks and the theodolite — leads to the temporary occupation of 
our Territories by men who never contemplate remaining longer than 
to invigorate themselves for a new chase after the site of some future 
city. The waste and squander of our public lands, and the facilities 
which the manufacture of new States, and our liberal and reckless 
grants of the national domain to encourage every scheme which 
promises to rise to the dignity of a successful speculation, furnish 
aliment to this love of adventure, and swells the flow of emigration. 
These, and other circumstances which I would state if I had the time, 
have, in my judgment, conspired to verify the prediction of thousands 



o 

of intelligent men at the Nortli, who feared that the final adjustment 
ot the slavery question upon the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill, like every other adjustment of that question which we liave yet 
made_, would inevitably lead to newer difficulties and still more 
serious complications. Notwithstanding these just apprehensions, the 
democratic party of the North united with the democratic party of the 
South in giving in their adherence to this new and untried doctrine. 
Sir, I gave my individual adherence, not without reluctance, and 
solely for the reason that it seemed apparent that the growing senti- 
ment of our northern people in favor of the exclusion of slave emigra- 
tion, and the predominance in the popular branch of Congress of 
Kepresentatives from uon-slaveholding States, required some new, 
even if experimental, mode of stilling the clamors which then, as 
now, were supposed to endanger the harmony of our people. 

Mr. Chairman, inasmuch as the democratic party has thus solemnly 
adopted this principle, and avowed it to the country ; having declared 
it upon the records of the convention at Cincinnati ; having conducted 
the late presidential campaign upon it ; and having brought into 
power an administration who recognize it as a binding and valid 
principle of democratic faith — speaking for myself alone, and not 
assuming to give advice to others — I will say that I regard my per- 
sonal honor and political integrity as pledged to my constituency to 
carry it out in the most perfect good faith. It is due to the dis- 
tinguished authors of that measure, be they northern men or southern 
men ; it is due to the Congress of 1854, who recorded that principle 
in the organic law of Kansas, that, in this instance, it shall, at all 
events, have a fair test and an impartial trial. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I must hasten to present my views in respect 
to the proposed admission of Kansas with the Lecompton constitution. 
In doing so, I shall, I fear, disappoint those of my constituents who 
had hoped that I would, in no event, give my vote for her admission. 
I shall also, I apprehend, disappoint any who may have expected that 
I would give my assent to her unqualified admission, right or wrong^ 
without regard to the circumstances surrounding the case, to which I 
shall now proceed to advert. 

The substitution of the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill for 
the doctrine of the right and power of Congress to enforce the claims 
of the respective Sfctions of the Union to territorial privileges, con- 
stituted a new era in our national politics, and ex proprio vigore enacted 
a new set of rules applicable to the subject of the admission of new 
States formed out of such Territories. It cannot be, controverted that 
the Constitution of the United States is silent as to the mode by which, 
the time at which, and the circumstances under which, new States 
may be admitted, with the limited exception prohibiting their erection 
within the jurisdiction of any other State, or their formation by the 
junction of two or more States, without the consent of their respective 
legislatures, and of Congress. The case at hand was evidently unfor- 
seen. It is clear to my mind that the framers of the Constitution had 
not in view our subsequent vast acquisition of foreign territory, or 
their wisdom would have provided some mode by which we should 
have been spared the terrible convulsions to which the subject gives 



rise. I cannot conceive that it could then have been expected that 
the institution of domestic slavery should be driven from the confines 
of the Kepublic. The prohibition of the power to prevent the impor- 
tation for a term of years, the clause providing for the restoration of 
fugitives, and the previous adjustment of the question of slavery, as 
to the territory northwest of the Ohio, satisfy my mind that it was 
contemplated that slavery should continue to exist within the Union ; 
but it seems to have been imi)ossible that it could have been foreseen 
that new and foreign territory should be acquired by purchase, out of 
the common treasury, for the occupancy of which, proprietors and 
non-pro])rietors of slaves might be brought in coniiict ; nor was there 
any ground for the apprehension that any new Territory would be the 
scene of a contest for political power. 

This silence of the Constitution as to the terms upon which new 
States may be admitted into the Union, and the language in which 
the power to admit them is contained, in my judgment, from the 
necessity of the case leaves the whole subject to the discretion of Con- 
gress, subject to no restraints beyond those which it may self-impose, 
for the accomplishment of the great purposes "for which the Constitu- 
tion was formed. Congress having never by general law attempted 
to regulate the subject, and its usage, in respect of the circumstances 
of admission, not having been uniform, it is obvious that the whole 
question remains open lor adjustment from time to time, as may be 
required by the exigencies of each particular case. There is, in my 
opinion, not one single word in the Constitution giving countenance 
to the suggestion that any new State can claim admission as matter 
of right, or that the largest liberty should not be exercised by Con- 
gress in its decision of all such ajjplications for admission. And here 
permit me to advert to the assertion so frequently made, and as con- 
stantly assumed to be incontrovertible, that Congress is prohibited by 
the terms of the Federal compact from looking at the constitution of 
a new State applying for admission beyond the point essential to de- 
termine whether the form of government it prescribes is or is not 
republican. I can find no such prohibition in the constitution ; nor 
can I discover any principle from which such prohibition can be in- 
ferred. The clause which declares that the United States shall guarantee 
to every State in the Union a republican form of government is evi- 
dently applicable to the case of domestic revolution occurring after 
admission, and to the contingency of invasion or domestic violence. 
It is manifest that it could not have been contemplated that any State 
in the Union should have a form of government otherwise than repub- 
lican ; but there is no limitation, express or imjilied, upon the power 
and the duty of Congress, when introducing a new State to share the 
privileges and enjoy the protection of the Constitution, to look to the 
substance and I'ar beyond the form. 

To illustrate my meaning — suppose that a State should apply for 
admission into the Union with a republican form of government_, and 
with a constitution establishing some mode of administering justice at 
variance with any now recognized by the civilized world — Avould it be 
seriously contended that, notwithstanding this, the United States were 
bound to accede to such application, while, by an exj^ress provision of 



tlie Constitution of the United States, full faitli and credit is required 
to be given to the judicial proceedings of such new State? Would 
this Congress regard itself as obligated, by such act of admission, to 
compel the thirty-one States of the Union to enforce in their own tri- 
bunals, and without review, and that, too, against their own citizens 
and their property, decrees and judgments rendered not in accordance 
•with the forms of law, nor in consonance with our commonly received 
notions of natural justice? 

But the Kansas-Nebraska bill has, in the most explicit terms, pro- 
vided that any State or States formed out of the Teiritory embracedin 
the act shall be received into, the Union with or without slavery, as 
their constitution may prescribe. It has become, therefore, the law 
of the Federal Union, in respect to that Territory, that the existence 
or non-existence of the institution of slavery cannot be the subject of 
inquiry or objection on an application of any State for admission. 
Hence the arguments which have been presented on this floor, for and * 
against the institution of slavery, although eloquent and instructive, 
appear to me to be altogether aside from the issue. 

Upon the application made in behalf of Kansas for admission into 
the Union, under the Lecompton constitution, several inquiries natu- 
rally present themselves, each of which should, in my judgment, be 
answered. They all arise upon every application for the admission of 
a new State, and I do not recognize any existing pressure which, in 
this particular instance, should relieve from the scrutiny. These in- 
quiries are the following : 

1. Have her proceedings been sufficiently regular to authorize her 
admission without a violation of principles already established, or 
which should be applied, in case of every application of a new State for 
admission ? 

2. Has she the requisite population ; and have that population the 
requisite degree of stability and order to justify her admission? 

3. Is the application for her admission that of the people of Kansas 
or of individuals who, against the remonstrance of her people, have 
presented it in her name ? 

4. Has a constitution been made by that people ; and are there 
State officers in existence, elected by that people, entitled and com- 
petent to assume the discharge of their executive duties upon the su- 
percession of the territorial government, which must instantly result 
from the act of admission ? 

Mr. Chairman, I shall proceed to consider the saibject-matter of 
these several inquiries, and because of the limitation of my time, 
without strict reference to the order in which I have stated them. 

It must be conceded that^ as I have before stated, there is no pre- 
scribed rule as to the proceedings initiatory to the formation of a new 
State. They have been admitted where the preliminary steps have been 
regular and where they have been confessedly irregular ; with and 
without enabling acts ; and with and without what, in my judgment, 
is a requisite population. While there can be no doubt of the very- 
great propriety ot requiring an enabling act, and a strict compliance 
with its provisions, as preliminary to the formation of a State govern- 
ment ; it nevertheless has impressed me that, in view of the recent admis- 



s 

sionof California with acoDstitution formedby a drum-liead convention, 
it would be ungracious to insist that in this, the first application, since 
that event for the admission of a State with a constitution contain- 
ing a slavery clause, there should, of necessity, have been an enabling 
act, and a rigid adherence to its provisions. I cannot conceive that 
the Kansas-Nebrasha bill itself can properly be regarded as an en- 
abling act. It contains no semblance of authority for the formation 
of a State government. It simply created a temporary government 
for a district of territory, reserving the power of the subsequent 
division of it into two or more Territories, and of attaching any por- 
tion of it to any other State or Territory at such time as Congress 
should deem expedient. It is, therefore, entirely competent for Con- 
gress, at any time prior to its absorption into a sovereign State, to 
divide it into two or more Territories, which would subsequently be 
entitled to admission into the Union as two or more States. How 
can this power of division exist in conjunction with the stipulation to 
admit the whole into the Union as a single State, upon compliance 
with its provisions as an enabling act? And if the act is an enabling 
act, such a stipulation is to be implied. If it was an enabling act, 
the few hundred people scattered over her plains were authorized at 
once to form a constitution and State government ; and although 
hardly sufficient in number to fill the executive and legislative 
offices, to prescribe for all time the character of the institutions of 
that vast region of territory. No such design could have been in- 
tended, and none such is fairly inferable from the provisions of the 
act. But this result is by no means fatal to her application for ad- 
mission, for it is wholly within the discretion of Congress to reduce 
the dimensions of the proposed State, and to give consent to the ap- 
plication for admission, notwithstanding the absence of an enabling 
act. 

It appears that the territorial legislature created by her organic 
law, of their own motion, and ivUhout the consent of CongresSj 
submitted to the people, at popular elections, the determination of the 
question whether a State government should be formed ; and an 
affirmative vote havingbeen given, subsequently enacted a law for a 
convention to frame a constitution ; and the constitution alleged to 
have been formed at such convention is submitted to Congress as the 
constitution of Kansas. 

It is suggested, among other things, that the territorial legislature 
by which tliesQ proceedings were initiated were not the fairly chosen 
representatives of the people of Kansas ; that gross irregularities took 
place in the apportionment for members of the convention ; and that 
multi])lied frauds characterized each and every of the elections 
occurring prior to the consummation of the work of the convention. 
It seems to me that these several allegations, if true, are nevertheless 
not decisive of the question before us. 

When Congress constituted the territorial jrovernment of Kansas, 
it declared, or must be held to have ascertained and declared, that 
there was a sufficiency of population, and of order, and of the means 
of securing order, in Kansas, to justify the creation of a territorial 
legislature, and the holding of the popular elections required by the 



9 



Tnfif fn 'rf "^^^T- • ¥ ^}^ P^P^^atioa Of Kansas were savages and 

crpVp/ Tfff ' ^ territona government should not hav^ been 
created. K there was not sufficient physical force to prevent a hostil^ 
nvas.on from foreign territory to override her electionsfand a suffic ent 
degree of integrity among her people, and among the o!ws cWed 
with the control of her elections to secure an he Lst result tfi 

ZtT'r'f "1 1'^^l "T ^^«^^-^^^- I ^^-'-k IrmustTetlsumed 
that the territorial legislature was competent to determine all ques ?on« 
touching- the eligibility and the elections of its members trafZ 
governor of the Territory made a sufficiently jut an f Li'- L^r^^^^^^^^ 

"'oLaitr' Sr'"" 'T^ ''\^'^ '''"^^ correS peXmance' 
oi_ omciai duty , that the convention likewise was comoet-nt to dpfpr 

J?'?nf l?rn'"'' '"""^^^"^ '^'^ membership of the lS^s compos nJ 
it,_and tha all wrongs of the description referred to had tlS^annro 
priate legal redress. I am not without suspicions tha s ch TZ 

tlsTpLw ^0 "^"'^ f ^^^^^n ^^^'-' aTthedrcumstl^nc'e 
It is expedient for Congress to review those several transactions ind 
attempt to aj)ply remedies at this late hour transactions, and 

I he question of a submission of the constitution framed bv tT.^ 
convention, to the people for. their direct ratifiSn, hTs been the 
subject of much discussion. As I do not find in the organic ae? Int 

as'l clnLt' i^fJ?l^l\^' ^'''''' '' ^^-^"^ ^ ^'-'^ government ancf 

LeLlature to ^ ,t • ^^''' ^"^ ^^^ ^^'^'^^ ""''^'^ '^ ^^^ Terri t'oria 
i^egislatuie to authorize a convention which should form a constitu 

tion which should of necessity be binding upon Congres^ iVseems To 

me to be quite immaterial, in its legal aspect, whether that con titu 

eauiXn loTZ' 'f""''''^'' '' *^^ ^^^P^^ ^^ *^-- ratifica^/on to 
L^fn Ip f 1 ^^y, «^^;"^««ion appears in the organic act ; none such 
18 to be found m the territorial law creating the convention and T 

thTprrsli: t' IZV'T'' T^ -J^atfSundationThlTpinio'n of 
ine I resiclent, that the slavery clause must of necessitv have been 

"reaTto;;L'vt"'Y- ^e has demonstrated that thL wTs ve" 
fit! V P ^ '° '"^ ' ^"b'^^iS'^ion, and I conceive that 1>}iere would 

vW fl, ^^^'^^e to regard its non-submission as a vital defect In 
view of the conflict of opinions existing in the Territory of he noto 
nous popular prejudice against the fii?t Territorial Mature and 
of the complaints which were rife in respect to the organ" za^iln of the 
constitutiona convention, and especially in view of X derrations 
acknowledged tohave been made by Governor Waker upon real oi 
supposed authority from the President, that the who e' co^n i Sbn 

tharalt^istrn'tn^??"^'*.^' '^ the 'people for ratmLTon?! tS 
tnata submission would have been most timely and most annronriate 

out Moience. But I am one of those who do not re^^ard the Donulir 

etate ramin'at'l'ttf '''''''^ f'f ?"^.-^^^^ ^^ ^^^ calm aVdTKb- 
tution nor w 11 li -^ complicated details of a written State consti- 
tution , nor would their results, as declared by partisan iudo-es be 
cone usive evidence to my mind that they indicated the ^m of the 
people. I have no doubt whatever of the right of the peopT o dele! 



10 

gate to their representatives authority to enact laws, organic or other- 
wise, with or without subsequent submission. And I regard all the 
proceedings preliminary to the final consummation of the work of the 
convention, as evidence, not conclusive, but nevertheless evidence, 
bearing upon the great question, is that constitution the act of the 
people? 

The convention complete their labors and dissolve. They have 
formed a constitution. The people of the Territory are to be pre- 
sumed to have at one time desired admission into the Union as a 
State. Does it necessarily follow from these facts that Congress is 
bound to assume peremptorily that they will seek such admission, and 
that such admission must be accorded? At this point, in my mind, 
serious difficulties arise. I have not yet heard the argument that can 
solve them. 

After the dissolution of that convention, it remained to elect 
executive officers and a constitutional Legislature; and, in the 
opinion of the President, it further remained to take a vote at a popu- 
lar election upon the so-called submission of the slaver}'' provision. 
The election of the State officers and of the Legislature were neces- 
sary to provide the machinery to set the new government in operation 
■when the territorial government should be superseded by the act of 
admission; and the vote upon the submission of the slavery clause 
was, according to the opinion of the President, essential to give 
vitality to the work of the convention. These elections and their 
attending circumstances are, in my judgment, proper and necessary 
subjects of inquiry by this Congress. It is asserted upon most re- 
spectable authority that remedies in respect to wrongs at these elec- 
tions can be afforded elsewhere. I cannot find the place. Where, I 
ask, can a false return of the vote upon the submission of the slavery 
clause be corrected but here? Upon the act of admission the trans- 
action is instantly complete; and that constitution is, without amend- 
ment, the fundamental law of Kansas. Where, I ask again, but 
here, can a false and fraudulent return of the election of State officers 
be correcte'd? At the moment of admission they are installed in the 
actual possession of the government of Kansas ; they become entitled 
to be maintained in that possession b}' the power of the federal gov- 
ernment; and, for aught I know, a usurpation may be instantly set 
up which would work an outrage upon the people of Kansas which the 
government of the United States is powerless to counteract or remove. 

Now, what are the facts ? The president of the constitutional con- 
vention, in pursuance of the provisions of the schedule of the consti- 
tution, appointed commissioners, who appointed judges, who held the 
elections and returned the results to him, and to him alone. Admit 
that the officers holding these elections were sworn faithfully to per- 
form their duties, as required by the tenth section of the schedule ; 
what security have we for an honest return as to either of the elections 
prescribed by the schedule? What security, I ask, but the personal 
integrity of Calhoun ? While I know nothing of this gentleman 
which Avill justify me in saying a single word in his defamation, I 
have not learned enough of him to satisfy my mind that we can safely 
sanction and give the force of precedent to the most unjustifiable 



11 

measure to which that convention resorted, in viohation of the usages 
of the country ; a measure unknown to the history of any State in the 
Union, and, in my judgment, for every reason, altogether unwarrant- 
ahle. I speak of the assumption by Mr. Calhoun — I care not whether 
at his own suggestion or at that of the convention — of supreme, un- 
limited, uncontrolled, and unwatched guardianship of the elections 
which were to ensue. I speak of the entire exclusion of every 
territorial officer, of every grade, from the governor down to the 
lowest of its officials ; and I venture to assert that it is the first 
time in the history of constitutional conventions that any one man, 
however exalted his integrity or unsuspected his character, has been 
solely charged with the execution of trusts so important and so vast. 
When one of our older States changes its form of government it inva- 
riably takes the care to entrust the elections which are to place the 
new machinery of State in motion, in the hands of its own acknow-* 
ledged and accredited officers ; and in every other case than that of 
Kansas, which has fallen under my observation, our Territories, when 
about to abandon their territorial organization, and to assume the 
powers of State sovereignty, have, I believe without exception, re- 
sorted to the precaution of associating with the president of the con- 
vention one or more of the territorial officers, in order that a usurpa- 
tion of power may not occur in the act of transfer. 

I am not satisfied that the constitutional convention had any legis- 
lative powers of a general descrij)tion. None were granted them by 
the law of its creation. No such powers caii be implied. The legis- 
lative power of Kansas, to the very hour I speak, remains vested in 
her Territorial Legislature. It was not in their power to alienate 
it, nor did they attempt such alienation. They could not declare 
that fraudulent voting at elections, to be held in pursuance of their 
schedule, should be crimes, or that fraudulent returns of such elections 
should be punishable. They did not prescribe punishments, and could 
not enforce the punishments which they might have prescribed. If 
this be true, these elections were held without the semblance of public 
security. The President, in his message of February 2, 1858, remarks, 
in respect to the January election for executive officers, as follows : 

" If frauds have been committed at this election, either by one or botli parties, the Legisla- 
ture and the people of Kansas, under their constitution, will know how to redress themselves, 
and punish these detestable but too common crimes, without any outside interference." 

With the greatest respect for the distinguished source from which 
that expression emanates, and satisfied that the heart of no man in 
America beats less in sympathy with fraud, in any of its forms^ than 
his, I should like to be informed how the people of Kansas can redress 
themselves, and punish those crimes, except in the mode in which the 
people of San Francisco some few years since punished the stuffers of 
their ballot-boxes? Can the State Legislature of Kansas, which is to 
come into being upon her admission to the Union, enact a law to punish 
crimes committed before their existence began, notwithstanding the 
inhibition against ex post facto laws, declared as well in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States as in the constitution of Kansas ? Upon this 
point I cannot accede to the opinion of the President. 

We thus have presented to us the case of elections in Kansas con- 



12 

ducted without any of the safeguards which in every portion of the 
civilized world, where popular elections are lield, invariably attend 
them. We thus have the case of a convention authorized by the 
people of Kansas,, speaking through their territorial legislature, to 
frame a State constitution, andtn do nothing more^ usurping the powers 
of that people, and committing her future executive and legislative 
offices to the uncontrolled will of a single individual, and that indi- 
vidual not the man of their choice. You find tliat convention em- 
ploying its own delegated powers to grant new ones to commissioners, 
to be still further delegated to judges of election, and all, so far as I 
can see, without the shadow of reasonable security. You find, in 
short, a provisioned government, erected by a constitutional conven- 
tion with limited authority, subverting the territorial legislature. 
Now how can this be justified? Are we bound by any iron rule to 
confirm any usurpation which may have followed this transaction ? 
Where is the government which is to supervene upon the act of 
admission? Will you leave Kansas without government? Will you 
admit her to the Union, thereby repealing her territorial organization, 
and deprive her people of every kind of legal protection ? Will you 
leave her murders to go unrevenged, and her incendiaries to go unre- 
strained, and withdraw the army, which might, for the time being at 
least^ give her people the protection of a military despotism, until this 
new State government can be hunted out from its lair ? Where is 
this government? Who are its officers? Are they known to the 
President ? Are they known and recognized by the people of Kansas ? 
What are their names ? Where do they live ? Are they in Kansas, 
or are they in Washington ? Will they go to Kansas ? When will 
they go ? Who is to provide the armed force to set the new govern- 
ment upon its feet? Where is the living man that can disclose the 
secret of the names of the officers of this proposed new State govern- 
ment ? Is there more than one such man ? Should he perish by one 
of the casualties of life, would the secret die with him, or would he 
leave the record behind ? Why has not that important secret been 
revealed ? 

Can you find a precedent in the history of the country for the ad- 
mission of a State where the act of admission may, and probably will, 
instantly consign her to anarchy and ruin? Is there anything in the 
history of Kansas, or in the character of her people, which renders 
such a policy wise or statesmanlike ? The President has informed 
us that the Territory of Kansas has kept for years in a state of almost 
open rebellion against its government, and at this moment an army 
preserves her peace. Will the people, whose turbulence and lawless- 
ness have been kept in subjection only by military power — who have 
been in constant rebellion against their own territorial government, 
yield ready obedience to a State government, the very names and per- 
sons of whose officers are undisclosed secrets in the breast of a single 
man, whose lips no power on earth can unseal ? Congress, the Pres- 
ident, and the people of Kansas are each and all powerless to compel 
him to break his ominous silence ! 

Mr. Chairman, when an application is made to Congress by the 
people of a Territory for their admission into the Union as a State, 



IB 

the very act of application implies tlie assent of the people of the 
Te^^itor3^ The act of admission is the consent of Congress to the 
application. The whole transaction is hy consent. The admission is 
a great privilege. It entitles her to participation, through her Kep- 
resentatives, iu the councils of the first nation upon the face of tlie 
globe. It makes her a partner in the glories of our revolution. It 
makes our history hers. The faith of the Federal Union becomes 
pledged to her for protection against invasion and domestic violence. 
She is secured the advantages of a republican government, with its 
unnumbered blessings. Her citizens acquire the privileges and im- 
munities of the citizens in the several States. She shares in our ex- 
haustless wealth — receives more than an imperial dowry. It is the 
meeting of father and child after the days of infancy have passed. 
Parental affection, if chilled by long absence, renews its care, and 
filial love commences a lifelong career. All this is too large a reward 
for turbulence and wrong. Keview our history. No State has ever 
yet been admitted as a punishment for the crimes of her people. If 
Kansas is still rebellious, let us not from any miserable spirit of econ- 
omy, or mistaken notion of expediency, bring her now into the sister- 
hood of States. She may light among them the fires of civil discord. 
At any rate, do not drag her in as a convict in chains. Keep her 
from her father's house till, passion all subdued, the work of repent- 
ance done, with calm and stately steps she knocks at the portals of 
her future home. 

Mr. Chairman, is the voice we hear applying for admission the 
voice of Kansas? What, sir, is the evidence? John Calhoun, the 
president of the constitutional convention, in a letter to the President, 
of January 14, 1858, says that Kansas asks for admission into the 
Union as a sovereign State. The President informs us in his message of 
February 2, 1858, "that he has received from J. Calhoun, esq., presi- 
dent of the late constitutional convention, a copy, duly certified by 
himself, of the constitution framed by that body, with the expres- 
sion of a hope that he would submit the same to the consideration of 
Congress, with the vievr of the admission of Kansas into the Union as 
an independent State." The President recommends her admission, 
" with a view to terminate the Kansas question." This, sir, is the 
evidence, and the whole evidence, in support of the application, John 
Calhoun endorsed and certified by himself, with the expression of his 
hope that the President would submit the same to Congress. 

But, sir, is this the only voice v/e hear from Kansas or her people ? 
No ! We hear another voice from Kansas. Her people, through 
their territorial legislature, under date of December 23, 1857, remon- 
strate and protest against her admission. They speak in tones louder 
and clearer than those of John Calhoun. They say that they have 
been disfranchised and defrauded, and that they do not seek admis- 
sion into the Union under the Lecompton constitution, and claim the 
right to form and adopt a constitution for themselves. No discord 
marked their deliberations. The voice of her people comes upon us 
in one unbroken column: " JFe protest against admission under the 
Lecompton constitution." 

To which of these voices shall we hearken ? 



14 

It is contended, Mr. Chairman, that the constitutional convention 
speak through their president ; that the people of Kansas canuot recall 
the assent which it is alleged they teclinically gave when their Terri- 
torial Legislature authorized its assembling ; that there is no locus 
penitentice ; tliat they signed the bond and must pay the forfeit; that 
the usurpation of that convention must be perpetuated by the action 
of Congress ; and that our eyes and ears are closed to any iniquities, 
no matter how gross, which may have followed in its train. 

Sir, shall the representatives of the people of America respond by 
such cold and cheerless logic as this to the remonstrances often thousand 
men? Sir, I regard the whole argument as fallacious. That convention 
derived its power through the Territorial Legislature, who prescribed 
the limitations of the power. That Legislature still lives, exercising 
the sovereignty of the people of Kansas, while the convention, to 
whom they delegated the work of forming a constitution, shorn of 
their power, have become mingled and lost among her people. 

Is there a man upon this floor who will lay his hand ui)on his heart 
and say, that if the constitution proffered to us had been silent upon 
the subject of slavery any such argument would have been deemed 
unanswerable ? 

If it had happened that the so-called free-State men of Kansas had, 
by similar processes or omissions, acquired control of th3 organization 
of that convention, and sought, against the wishes of the people of 
Kansas, as evidenced by the action of her Territorial Legislature, to 
impose a constitution upon them, to last even for an hour, it is my 
sincere belief that the representatives of the democracy of the North 
would have stood, as we now stand, in calm and firm resistance to the 
wrong. 

Mr. Chairman, can the people of Kansas change that constitution 
immediately_, if Ave should place it upon them by the act of admission? 
If they can ; if it so be that its imposition — if obnoxious to her people — 
if violative of the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and subver- 
sive of the theory of self-government which forms the base of our 
American system — can work but temporary evil, and bring about the 
result sought by the President, and declared by him as the sequence 
of admission, so cordially do I sympathize with his noble and patriotic 
declaration "that the peace and quiet of the whole country are of far 
greater importance than the mere temporary triumph of either of the 
political parties in Kansas," that I should with less hesitation give 
my vote in accordance with his recommendation. 

But in the exercise of that private judgment which I have no right 
to resign, and with the strongest desire to accede to the policy of an 
administration which I sincerely believe have the good of the country 
at heart, I find it impossible fully to concur. I am so constituted that 
I have not the power to resist the conclusions to which I arrive, after 
the most deliberate survey that I am able to take of the facts before 
me ; and if the declaration of my honorable colleague,, [Mr. Taylor,] 
that to err against such an administration as that wliich has our 
confidence is criminal, be true, I have only to say that I would at any 
time commit the crime he denounces, to avoid the greater one of giving 



15 

a vote which I conceive to be antagonistic to the true interests of the 
country, and violative of the principles of justice and of truth. 

Mr. Chairman, the principle which justifies the American revolu- 
tion, viz : the right of resistance to a government which has be- 
come intolerable, and the right of the people to change their form of 
government, is recognized in the bill of rights of the Lecompton con- 
stitution. It underlies every State constitution, and is imbedded deep 
in the hearts of our people. It is the law of America. 

In the exercise of that enduring and irrepealable right, the people 
of Kansas can unquestionably throw ofi" the tyranny of any constitu- 
tion which can be imposed upon them. But I find myself unable to 
accord with those who hold, that notwithstanding the prohibitions of 
a constitution, and in defiance of a specific mode of amendment or 
change expressly provided, the people can at any time, subvert their 
fundamental law ; I am inclined to agree with the honorable gentle- 
man from South Carolina^ [Mr. Keitt,] and others, who regard a 
reasonable degree of permanence, as a valuable fei^ture in our Ameri- 
can system. I have no doubt but that the legislature of any State 
may initiate the proceedings for a convention to frame a new constitu- 
tion ; that such convention may ordain a new fundamental law ; that 
the people may acquiesce in the change, and thus the work of revolu- 
tion be accomplished without violence or bloodshed. This spectacle 
has often been exhibited. But the legislature, v/liich is the«machinery 
to set this train in motion, must be in the control of those who would 
disorganize and organize anew, otherwise an effort on the part of the 
people to change their constitution is the wild frenzy of the howling 
mob. To that dread remedy I would not subject even the rebellious 
people of Kansas. 

It follows, therefore, that the power to change their constitution, or 
form of government, depends wholly upon the control which they can 
obtain of the machinery of the State. 

The President has said in his message transmitting the Lecompton 
constitution : 

" The Legislature [of Kansas] already elected, may, at its very first session, submit the 
question to a vote of the people, whether they will, or will not, have a convention to amend 
their constitution, and adopt all necessary means for giving effect to the popular will." 

Make this declaration true, and assure its fulfillment in respect to 
Kansas, and I will vote for her admission as a measure of peace, and 
not otherwise. But the President's assertion of the acknowledged 
right of revolution, or any abstract assertion of that right which Con- 
gress may make, is very far from establishing the proposition that 
the people of Kansas "can make and unmake their constitution at 
^ileasure." You must, in addition, provide the machinery which will 
permit this great change of fundamental law to be attempted, without 
treason to established government, and without subversion of social 
order. Can this be done ? I have no doubt of the power of Congress 
to prescribe conditions for the admission of a new State, and that 
without doing violence to the acknowledged principle of non-interven- 
tion. Congress cannot make, or alter their constitution ; but it can 
compel them to make one lor themselves, or in default, deny their ap- 
plication for admission. 




16 

Mr. Chairman, something is due to the op 
Much of individual opinion may be sacrificed to meet th.e demand 
which the country makes, that the peace and harmony of the Union 
"be not endangered. Something is to be yielded to produce harmony 
in that great party which, when united and acting in adherence to its 
principles, can guide the destinies of the nation. Something may, 
perhaps, be accorded to allay the irritability of the people of the South, 
excited by an entire misapprehension of the real and substantial dif- 
ficulties which lie in the way of the admission of Kansas — difficulties 
which they themselves would regaini as insurmountable could they 
become assured, as they ought to be, by their public men, that the 
question of slavery is in no manner material to the issue. 

And when I can be satisfied that the admission of Kansas can ac- 
complish the ends indicated in the President's message ; if it will, to 
employ his language, '^restore peace and quiet to the whole country," 
"localize the excitement," " cause it to perish for want of outside 
aliment," ''"enaulc"-,''^ Executive to withdraw the troops from Kan- 
sas," '' and dissipate .he dark and ominous clouds which now impend 
over the Union," and at the same time do no violence to the rights of the 
people of Kansas, and give no success to the frauds which have dishonored 
her name, I will no longer oppose. 

But all these results cannot be secured without a clear, distinct, and 
unequivocal' declaration in a form of a condition of admission. I will 
not be critical as to form, provided it shall honestly and e^ectually 
and certainly secure the great work of justice and pacification — pro- 
vided the scheme of admission shall be such as shall exonerate the 
democratic party of the Union, and the administration of their choice, 
from the imputation unjustly made^ of seeking to impose upon the 
people of Kansas a constitution, which, from the evidence before us, 
I cannot force myself to the belief, is in accordance with the wishes of 
her people. 

Mr. Chairman, speaking for mj'-self alone, I doubt all the claims of 
Kansas for present admission ; I distrust her possession of a sufficient 
population, or of that degree of stability and social order which should 
be deemed preliminarily requisite to the intrustment of her people, 
witli the plenary powers of State sovereignty ; I am not satisfied that 
her proceedings have been sufficiently regular ; I am not convinced 
that the application to which it is proposed to listen, is that of the 
people of Kansas, speaking through the form in which their voice 
can be unmistakably recognized. While I take no pride in her his- 
tory, while I have no sympathy with the scenes of fraud and violence 
which have signalized her career, while I detest the invasions upon 
the great right of honest sufi'rage Avhich have stained her traditions, 
I will, nevertheless^ yield my reluctant assent to her admission to the 
Union, provided the bill can be so framed that no permanent mis- 
chief can result to Kansas or the country ; and the people, who, under 
the guidance of Providence, are to develop her destinies, shall have 
secured to them the right to form, without wrong, and without vio- 
lence, the institutions under which they and their children are to live. 



